What is the quantum nature of time? We can find out
Quality reserve / Alamy
What does the time passage look like for a really quantum object? The best clock in the world can soon answer this question by checking how time can stretch and switch in the quantum sphere and allow us to explore the unexplored areas of physics.
An idea in which time can change or expand, arises in the special theory of relativity of Albert Einstein. Einstein showed that the speed of light is approaching as an object, the time, according to the visible, works more slowly than for a stationary observer. He expanded this idea with his general theory of relativity, showing the gravitational field, has the same effect from time. Igor Pikovski At the Stevens Technological Institute in New Jersey and his colleagues, they wanted to understand whether something like this could happen to the microscopic quantum world, which is measured by ultra 2 hours made of ions.
“Any experiment that we have today always feels something like a classic time, time that has nothing to do with quantum mechanics,” says Pikovsky. “We realized that there is a regime in which with ion clock this description simply fails,” he says.
Such watches are made of thousands of ions that are cooled to a temperature close to absolutely zero, striking lasers. At these extreme temperatures, the quantum states of ions and electrons inside can be very accurately controlled by electromagnetic forces. Accordingly, the ticks of the ion watches are installed by these electrons, which repeatedly fluctuating between two specific quantum states.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR2QO-PYJWW
Since their operation is dictated by the laws of quantum mechanics, these watches were an ideal condition for Pikovsky and its colleagues to study how relativistic and quantum effects can be mixed to influence cloth ticks. Pikovsky says that the researchers have now determined several cases when this should happen.
One example stems from the fact that quantum physics hates nothing. Instead of being able to stand absolutely motionless and frozen, even at extremely low temperatures, quanta should fluctuate, randomly gain or lose energy. The calculations of the command showed that these fluctuations can expand the measurement of time. The effect would be very small, but very likely observed with existing experiments in the ion watch.
Researchers also mathematically modeled what will happen if the clock is “compressed” to create a “superposition” of several quantum states. They found that the ticking of the clock determined by electrons in the ions will become inextricably linked with the movement of the ion itself – ions, and the state of electrons will become quantum confusing. “Usually in experiments you need to play tricks to develop confusion. The exciting thing here is that this happens, whether you want it or not, ”says a team member Christian Sanner At the University of Colorado.
Pikovsky says that this has an intuitive meaning that a quantum object in a superposition of states cannot experience only one sense of time, but the effect was never observed in the experiment. This should be possible in the near future, he says.
Member of the team Gabriel Sorsy The Stevens Technological Institute says that the next step is to add another important ingredient in modern physics is gravity. The ultra -ore clock can already detect the expansion of time from minor changes in the force of gravitational attraction of the Earth, for example, with an increase of even several millimeters, but it is how this effect will mix with an integral quantum watch is an open issue.
“I think that it is actually quite reasonable to do with the technology that we currently have,” says David Hum At the National Institute of US Standards and Technologies in Colorado. He says that the biggest problem will be to prevent tiny disturbances from the environment, by defeating the effects that the Pikovsky team hints at. If successful, such experiments would allow researchers to explore physical phenomena that they could never before, although quantum theory and theory of special relativity are two pillars that have long been holding most of modern physics, he says.
“Such experiments are exciting because they force these theories to confront each other in a domain, where there is a chance that we can find out something new,” says Alexander Smith In the college of St. Anselm in New Gampshire.
Topics:
